IF YOU WERE CONSIDERED A teenage weirdo in the late 1970s/early 1980s in Northern California’s suburban Diablo Valley, you could always find a place on Friday nights at an independent cinema-house in Walnut Creek, gathering with others of your tribe…
Category: Writing
My own serious stuff; the craft itself; those who inspire me in it; the art of reading.
And On, And On
I NEVER MET THEM. BUT I know them. The eleven Jews murdered yesterday as they worshiped at the Tree of Life Congregation near Pittsburgh could be found in any synagogue, including my own: the former congregational president, the lay leader,…
Out of the Ashes, Endlessly Turning
A YEAR AGO THIS WEEK, Ann, Geronimo and I fled the then-largest wildfire complex in California history. We were voluntary evacuees who came home to find everything relatively intact, so our story had a happy ending. My niece and nephew-in-law…
5 Thoughts: Blogging Life
1. THINK OF IT AS TRAINING. If you’re blogging the equivalent of a perzine, don’t expect a lot of readers, at least at the beginning. During the first decade of The Metaphorager‘s existence, my maximum readership was about 30 people;…
Why I Love: Writing
IT’S THE SCARINESS OF THE blank screen. It’s the focused attention. It’s the mental sensation of assembling Tinker-Toy pieces into a coherent structure. It’s the way the hours fly by. It’s the nothing-else-like-it buzz (thank you, Stephen King). It’s the…
Night, Fog, and One Hell of a Bang
IF I HAD KNOWN THAT our galleon would collide with a freighter, I would have worn a life jacket. The time was February 1988. Through a curious series of circumstances, I had signed aboard the replica galleon Golden Hinde II…
(Shave and) a Haircut, 12 Bucks!
WE HAD LIVED IN SONOMA for a third of my lifetime before I visited Allen’s Hair House, about a half-block south of the Plaza. I had become fed up with being charged $20 for a chop job by my previous…
Fie on Death, and the Pale Horse He Rode In On
He was a man. Take him for all in all. I shall not look upon his like again. — William Shakespeare, Hamlet WHEN I FIRST MOVED INTO an Oakland apartment in 1986 with John Woods “Wheels” “Spoonhead” “Calvin Biggins” Wheeler,…
Not Like It Used To Was
Mom in the drug store Called out to her son: “Brooklyn!” Am I getting old?
Windstorm Stylist
Scary loud gusts brush From the trees’ green-flowing hair Stray twigs and branches.
Autumn Sunday
ELEVEN A. M., September the twenty-fifth — Rain hits Sonoma.
Prosatio Silban and the Starving Survivor
A BUOPOTH IS A STRANGE beast: some say it is half-composed of men’s dreams, others prefer not to speculate. But of the little that is known, one thing is certain: no matter what shape it takes, its eyes are the…